Author Archive for Martin

Lefora Forums

Published by
Martin
at July 23, 2008 in Internet. 0 Comments

Thanks again to BBC Click I have discovered a great new service on the Internet. Lefora is a free forum service that lets you create a discussion forum service for your own communities. It’s really easy to set up, customise and get started.

So why do I need a forum? Well I’ve been secretly working on my own little project and now it’s time to start getting users on board. Using Lefora has enabled me to concentrate on my own service and not waste valuable time implementing another forum. You can check out my forum at rondayvoo.lefora.com.  Oh yeah, my little project is a Rondayvoo.com. Feel free to check it out and use the forum to tell me what you think!

If you want your own free forum just click on :

 free forum hosting by lefora

svnsync with PuTTY on Windows

Published by
Martin
at February 16, 2008 in Hacks. 0 Comments

Objective:

Maintain a copy of my local Subversion repository on my hosting server ready for deployment of my application using Capistrano.

Steps:

  1. Create remote svn repository
  2. Set up svn+ssh using PuTTY on Windows
    1. Download plink.exe and puttygen.exe to you local machine.
    2. run puttygen and generate a public/private key pair
      Don’t set a pass phrase and svn will not prompt you for it later.
    3. Save the private key to keyfile.ppk on your local hard disk.
    4. On the remote host open a file ~/.ssh/authorized_keys and paste in the public key from puttygen.
      Make sure the string fits on a single continuous line.
    5. In the file abov, pre-pend command=”svnserve -t” to the start of the public key.
      This forces the svnserve process to run when ever someone connects using this key pair. Having no passphrase on the key pair isn’t great for security but at least you are restricting access to just svn and not the whole shell.
    6. On the local Windows machine, edit %Application Data%\Subversion\config, under the [tunnels] section add
      [tunnels]
      ssh =plink -i \path\to\keyfile.ppk
      (use back slashes / despite it being on Windows)
    7. Test using svn info svn+ssh://username@host.com/home/username/svn-repos/application
  3. Set up two environment variables to save on the typing
    set torepos=svn+ssh://username@host.com/home/username/svn-repos/application
    set fromrepos=file:///s:/svn-repos
  4. Initialise the synchronisation set up
    svnsync init %torepos% %fromrepos%
  5. Check the synchronisation parameters have been correctly set on the remote repository
    svn proplist –revprop -r 0 %to%
    svn propget svn:sync-from-url –revprop -r 0 %torepos%
  6. Now do the sync
    svnsync sync %torepos%
  7. Sit back and wait, or in my case, go to bed.

Sources of inspiration:

Background Jobs and Queues with Ruby On Rails

Published by
Martin
at December 16, 2007 in Hacks. 0 Comments

http://labnotes.org/cgi-bin/trac.cgi/wiki/Ruby/ReliableMessaging

http://rubyforge.org/projects/backgroundrb/

http://ap4r.rubyforge.org/wiki/wiki.pl?HomePage

http://cleanair.highgroove.com/articles/2006/06/23/running-background-jobs

Spatial programming with Ruby on Rails

Published by
Martin
at October 21, 2007 in External Content. 0 Comments

http://highearthorbit.com/spatial-programming-with-ruby-on-rails/

http://thepochisuperstarmegashow.com/projects 

Ubuntu 704 on VMWare - Increase root partition size

Published by
Martin
at October 10, 2007 in Hacks. 0 Comments

The root partition of my Ubuntu 704 Server Virtual Machine was only 5GB and was filling up regularly. Incresing the size is quite complex as you have to increase the size of the VMWare disk file, then increase the size of the file system partition within the disk file. Here are the steps I went through and a few hints and tips along the way.

1. On the host system, increase size of VMWare disk files

(I added the VMWare folder to my PATH first)

D:\VMWare\ubuntu704server>vmware-vdiskmanager -x 10GB Ubuntu.vmdk

I also changed the file type to dynamically extend (that’s the -t 0), which renames the file in the process. This is an optional step as it can affect the performance of the VM.

D:\VMWare\ubuntu704server>vmware-vdiskmanager -r Ubuntu.vmdk -t 0 Ubuntu-000001.vmdk

2. Download the latest gparted livecd and save to host’s file system

gparted is a GUI tool for manipulating partitions. I tried a number of different tools before the gparted livecd, including qtparted on the latest Knoppix livecd. With the Knoppix qtparted, the resize option was continually greyed out. I did some digging and it seems the underlying parted didn’t like whatever Ubuntu do to the ext3 file system, so any tools on top (such as qtparted) can’t resize. The gparted livecd worked perfectly so I didn’t investigate further.

3. In the VM settings, change the VM’s CDROM to point to the newly downloaded gparted livecd iso image

4. Boot the VM, but press Esc asap and tell the VMWare bios to boot from CD first

5. Reboot the VM into the gparted livecd

6. When it eventually loads, point gparted at the disk device (/dev/sda). Delete the swap partition (/dev/sda5) and then delete the logical partition (/dev/sda2). /dev/sda5 was “inside” /dev/sda2.

The /dev/sda5 swap partition was at the end of the original 5GB drive, but was now sitting in the middle of my 10GB. I couldn’t figure out how to move the swap back so it was just easier to drop it and recreate it after I resized the main /dev/sda1 partition.

7. Resize the 1st partition to almost fill the available space, saving 512MB for a new swap partition

8. Create a new logical partition in the available space, gparted should automatically name this /dev/sda2 when you commit changes.

9. Create a new linux-swap partition inside the /dev/sda2 partition, gparted should automatially name this /dev/sda5 when you commit changes.

10. Reboot the VM, enter the VMWare BIOS and change boot priority so that the VM will boot from it’s disk.

That’s it !

Zeroconf / mDNS / Bonjour

Published by
Martin
at January 31, 2007 in Internet and Gadgets. 3 Comments

I have just discovered a whole area of IP based LAN technology I knew nothing about until this week! It’s known by various names including Zeroconfig, mDNS and Bonjour and I think this has the potential to completely change home networking.

I have been toying with setting up a DNS server at home to resolve all the host names for the machines on my local LAN, but in my research I spotted a suggestion to use Zeroconfig instead. After a bit of digging I realised this stuff looks very good.

Continue reading ‘Zeroconf / mDNS / Bonjour’

Submarine Pen, Brac, Croatia

Published by
Martin
at July 26, 2006 in General. 0 Comments

Submarine Pen

Submarine Pen.

Must visit this place again. Here are the coordinates:
N43 17.505 E16 29.669

It’s just around the Island of Brac from Milna, South of Split.

Photo courtesy of the crew of Indian Wizard.

Collected - The Best Of Massive Attack

Published by
Martin
at May 2, 2006 in Music. 1 Comment

Massive Attack - CollectedMy top three favourite CDs are all by the same artist Massive Attack; Mezzanine, 100th Window and Protection. I’m rubbish at describing music but I will say that it’s very electronic, often with very moody atmospheric vocals and some times just a little bit dancy - I think the young people call it “trip hop”. Basically if I had any musical talent at all, this is the kind of music I would want to make.

Continue reading ‘Collected - The Best Of Massive Attack’

Canon IXUS 55

Published by
Martin
at May 1, 2006 in Gadgets. 0 Comments

Canon IXUS 55 Don’t get me wrong, I love my Canon Powershot G2 but often it’s just too big and bulky to carry around. I’ve had my eye on the little IXUS range of Canon cameras for a while and during a recent trip abroad spotted this new IXUS 55. Being stuck in an airport waiting for a delayed plane is a great opportunity to check out a new gadget. One thing I really like about the G2 is that it’s digital camera shutter lag is much better than many other digital cameras, i.e. when you press the button it takes the picture very quickly and you don’t miss  too much of the action. However I was amazed that the lag on the 55 is almost non existent. In fact it was the speed of this little thing that made me decide to buy it there and then.

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Depeche Mode - Playing the Angel

Published by
Martin
at March 23, 2006 in Music. 0 Comments

Depeche Mode - Playing the Angel I have been a huge fan of Depeche Mode since I was a teenager. In recent years they have been going off the rails a bit, but this new album is brilliant. It’s the CD that is constantly played in the car now. Reiss’ favourite track (and mine) is John The Revelator, he just keeps playing it over and over again - I’m scared I might end up getting sick of it !